Since Soviet times, Russian analysts have mused about the possibility that Germany might try to recover Kaliningrad, or East Prussia as it was known before Joseph Stalin seized it at the end of World War II. Later, during the 1990s, they focused on the risk that the non-contiguous Russian oblast might break away and form a fourth Baltic republic. Most recently, they have suggested that in the event of a military conflict between Moscow and the West, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) might seize Kaliningrad in order to launch a broader attack on the Russian Federation. These concerns, apparently, have not disappeared. But they have been joined and even eclipsed by others, including fears that Lithuania and Poland supposedly have their own plans for undermining Moscow’s control of the oblast, hoping to eventually seize it for themselves. Both of these neighboring Baltic littoral countries have viewed the territory presently occupied by Kaliningrad as historically theirs.
OP-ED
Paul Goble: Russian analysts say Lithuania and Poland want to ‘recover’ Kaliningrad
A view taken on June 21, 2018 shows the city center of Kaliningrad, during the Russia 2018 World Cup football tournament.
